It wasn't an ad-hominem. It was a statement of fact. An ad hominem would be to imply you are completely and utterly devoid of any sense of humor whatsoever.
And what use is information you can't sell or use? Come on. Tell me how useful and what market value does a still photo of a group of people walkign down the street have? It's not like the Google van follows people around all day and marks their positions like CCTV does. You're trying to tell me the govt would pay for that crap when they have far better resources of their own? You're trying to tell me Google would risk their company's entire livelyhood by keeping the information at all and risking it being leaked that originals even exist? You're trying to tell me they'd risk even proposing such a thing to a government where it could backfire?
Government has their own surveillance vans and far more efficient ways of tracking people, than a single photo taken at some arbitrary point in time. If you were trying to track somebody down, is street view something you would really consider a tool? Sorry. Not plausible.
Risk/reward would not pan out. Blackmale is a big risk. Especially when you could blackmale google for blackmaling you for far far more (not to mention risking a company ending scandal and criminal prosecution). Totally not plausible. Try again!
But you keep dodging my question. I came up with plausible motivations for a govt with historical precedent (J Edgar Hoover, among others). You have yet to come up with a single plausible reason Google would keep the originals. In addition to the doubled storage, it's considerable risk for them to do so since an employee might leak that they were doing it and it could cause a scandal. I've been trying and can't think of a single reason they would keep that data.
I think people are more afraid not of the current ones in power, but by how the power could be misused by the next assholes vote in. More reasons here (post below).
Keep tabs on it's citizens without their consent for law enforcement, unauthorized surveillance. It could be abused by corrupt law enforcement to keep track of people they just don't like including political enemies of the ruling parties or opposition threatening to cut law enforcement funding. Think what J Edgar Hoover times 1000. The power is much much greater with real-time surveillance and the potential for abuse with such systems is relatively limitless, not to mention with every movement of every citizen tracked it makes overthrowing a government infinitely more difficult if that ever was required. The list goes on and on. But you didn't answer my question. It's google we're talking about here. Give me one single motivation why Google would keep that data?
Plus... It's like you're arguing Google has some secret evil motivation to keep the uncensored originals, despite the fact that this would double their storage requirements and provide no conceivable benefit. It strikes me as irrational paranoia, frankly.
HQ was available before it was added as a button on the interface. Google/Youtube kept nothing but what they said they would. Programs such as Miro could download them or you could use a special link. You will notice, however, that there are plenty of videos without the HQ option because nobody opted to upload a HQ compliant video and bother to set the options to get it to work.
What country do you live in that restricts your ability to record what you see and publish what you see in public so severely? Please. I'd like to make a note to never ever live there. You have a right to your own body, yes, but that right is not infringed by my taking a photo and does not trump my discretionary use of free speech by publishing that photo (which, depending on who you are, I might have very good reason to do so).
If the algorithm to blur it is automatic it makes sense that the originals would be discarded (no sense in keeping the originals if they won't be used). Even if it weren't the case, what is the problem with seeing people on a public street?
Well, in civilized countries, you have to ask people for permission, before recording anything of them. Audio, video, pictures, etc.
Which is usually not a problem. You nicely ask, and they're OK with it.
The point is that you have to ask.
Free speech (taking a picture and publishing it) trumps your right to privacy in public places (none). And no, you don't have to ask under US law (civilized country) to record somebody, even without their consent, unless it's a conversation with an expectation of privacy and the state's law prohibits it. Details here.
It's an extension of the basic right to have control over your own body.
I completely agree. But how does taking a picture of you in public interfere with that, exactly? You own your own body, I understand, but you don't own my interpretation or representation of your body taken in a public place.
which isn't much, especially when the faces are blurred with the exceptions of the ones the algorithm misses. If you're so concerned about that why not go to flikr and complain about people's blurred faces in public places. If I was trying to track somebody's face down the last place I'd look would be streetview.
Person A: "I demand with the authority endowed to me by a 51% majority (compared to the other bad choice) that you no longer sell cookies to anybody in my group because I am all powerful and all knowing and speak for all of them, including the minority that have no individual liberty! Cookies are bad! Muahahahahah!"
Person B: "ok, fine, but i'll be sure and tell the next customer who asks for cookies why they can't have any and what an asshole you are!"
Both do, but the difference is that private corporations have no direct authority over you. So go ahead living in the illusion that the government has your best interests at heart, power never corrupts, and society is better off when individual liberty is sacrificed for the arbitrary "greater good" du jour.
Because you can track people in realtime with CCTV. You can keep tabs on anybody or everybody at once. Because if you ever have to overthrow a government that becomes oppressive you're screwed.
But the fact remains that the faces are required to be blurred. I agree that Google should do this as they do in the states, but voluntarily not by force of the states. The problem is that by requiring them to do that it creates the ability to do it to just about anybody who takes a photo in a public place and publishes it. What happens when this gets applied to, for example, photos of police brutality at a protest in interest of the privacy of the police officers? or a politician or famous businessman in a compromising position? What about news cameraman taking photos of crowds. By the Swiss definition of privacy they would be violating thousands of people's privacy at once. I think it's a lot easier to put the responsibility on individuals so that if they don't want something to be public, they shouldn't do it in public. It gives more freedom to everybody but at the same time requires more individual responsibility. I can't see the huge privacy violation anyway. I see people's faces un-blurred every day when I walk down the street. Just because it's on the internet doesn't somehow make it evil. It's not like it's realtime and tracking people's movements. No. That's what CCTV does and apparently few Europeans have problems with that. What makes the government somehow more trustworthy than a corporation?
Cept each photo would have to be snapped at the exact same spot and/or matched up. Doing that automatically would require a lot of computational horsepower.
In the United States, due to the antiquated eavesdropping/wiretapping laws, you cannot record anybody's conversation without their knowledge and consent.
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't an ad-hominem. It was a statement of fact. An ad hominem would be to imply you are completely and utterly devoid of any sense of humor whatsoever.
And what use is information you can't sell or use? Come on. Tell me how useful and what market value does a still photo of a group of people walkign down the street have? It's not like the Google van follows people around all day and marks their positions like CCTV does. You're trying to tell me the govt would pay for that crap when they have far better resources of their own? You're trying to tell me Google would risk their company's entire livelyhood by keeping the information at all and risking it being leaked that originals even exist? You're trying to tell me they'd risk even proposing such a thing to a government where it could backfire?
Government has their own surveillance vans and far more efficient ways of tracking people, than a single photo taken at some arbitrary point in time. If you were trying to track somebody down, is street view something you would really consider a tool? Sorry. Not plausible.
PS: it's OK to lose an argument. Your dick won't magically fall off.
Risk/reward would not pan out. Blackmale is a big risk. Especially when you could blackmale google for blackmaling you for far far more (not to mention risking a company ending scandal and criminal prosecution). Totally not plausible. Try again!
But you keep dodging my question. I came up with plausible motivations for a govt with historical precedent (J Edgar Hoover, among others). You have yet to come up with a single plausible reason Google would keep the originals. In addition to the doubled storage, it's considerable risk for them to do so since an employee might leak that they were doing it and it could cause a scandal. I've been trying and can't think of a single reason they would keep that data.
I think people are more afraid not of the current ones in power, but by how the power could be misused by the next assholes vote in. More reasons here (post below).
Keep tabs on it's citizens without their consent for law enforcement, unauthorized surveillance. It could be abused by corrupt law enforcement to keep track of people they just don't like including political enemies of the ruling parties or opposition threatening to cut law enforcement funding. Think what J Edgar Hoover times 1000. The power is much much greater with real-time surveillance and the potential for abuse with such systems is relatively limitless, not to mention with every movement of every citizen tracked it makes overthrowing a government infinitely more difficult if that ever was required. The list goes on and on. But you didn't answer my question. It's google we're talking about here. Give me one single motivation why Google would keep that data?
It's still pretty blurry being so far away from the camera. I doubt if you could identify them based on those photos.
Can you provide me with one single plausible motivation for them to do so? A single one?
Plus... It's like you're arguing Google has some secret evil motivation to keep the uncensored originals, despite the fact that this would double their storage requirements and provide no conceivable benefit. It strikes me as irrational paranoia, frankly.
HQ was available before it was added as a button on the interface. Google/Youtube kept nothing but what they said they would. Programs such as Miro could download them or you could use a special link. You will notice, however, that there are plenty of videos without the HQ option because nobody opted to upload a HQ compliant video and bother to set the options to get it to work.
What country do you live in that restricts your ability to record what you see and publish what you see in public so severely? Please. I'd like to make a note to never ever live there. You have a right to your own body, yes, but that right is not infringed by my taking a photo and does not trump my discretionary use of free speech by publishing that photo (which, depending on who you are, I might have very good reason to do so).
If the algorithm to blur it is automatic it makes sense that the originals would be discarded (no sense in keeping the originals if they won't be used). Even if it weren't the case, what is the problem with seeing people on a public street?
Well, in civilized countries, you have to ask people for permission, before recording anything of them. Audio, video, pictures, etc. Which is usually not a problem. You nicely ask, and they're OK with it. The point is that you have to ask.
Free speech (taking a picture and publishing it) trumps your right to privacy in public places (none). And no, you don't have to ask under US law (civilized country) to record somebody, even without their consent, unless it's a conversation with an expectation of privacy and the state's law prohibits it. Details here.
It's an extension of the basic right to have control over your own body.
I completely agree. But how does taking a picture of you in public interfere with that, exactly? You own your own body, I understand, but you don't own my interpretation or representation of your body taken in a public place.
which isn't much, especially when the faces are blurred with the exceptions of the ones the algorithm misses. If you're so concerned about that why not go to flikr and complain about people's blurred faces in public places. If I was trying to track somebody's face down the last place I'd look would be streetview.
What exactly are you smoking that street-view is updated in realtime... and do you have any left?
No. It's more like this:
Person A: "I demand with the authority endowed to me by a 51% majority (compared to the other bad choice) that you no longer sell cookies to anybody in my group because I am all powerful and all knowing and speak for all of them, including the minority that have no individual liberty! Cookies are bad! Muahahahahah!"
Person B: "ok, fine, but i'll be sure and tell the next customer who asks for cookies why they can't have any and what an asshole you are!"
Both do, but the difference is that private corporations have no direct authority over you. So go ahead living in the illusion that the government has your best interests at heart, power never corrupts, and society is better off when individual liberty is sacrificed for the arbitrary "greater good" du jour.
Because you can track people in realtime with CCTV. You can keep tabs on anybody or everybody at once. Because if you ever have to overthrow a government that becomes oppressive you're screwed.
But the fact remains that the faces are required to be blurred. I agree that Google should do this as they do in the states, but voluntarily not by force of the states. The problem is that by requiring them to do that it creates the ability to do it to just about anybody who takes a photo in a public place and publishes it. What happens when this gets applied to, for example, photos of police brutality at a protest in interest of the privacy of the police officers? or a politician or famous businessman in a compromising position? What about news cameraman taking photos of crowds. By the Swiss definition of privacy they would be violating thousands of people's privacy at once. I think it's a lot easier to put the responsibility on individuals so that if they don't want something to be public, they shouldn't do it in public. It gives more freedom to everybody but at the same time requires more individual responsibility. I can't see the huge privacy violation anyway. I see people's faces un-blurred every day when I walk down the street. Just because it's on the internet doesn't somehow make it evil. It's not like it's realtime and tracking people's movements. No. That's what CCTV does and apparently few Europeans have problems with that. What makes the government somehow more trustworthy than a corporation?
It makes more sense to profit from the unavoidable than to try fruitlessly to prohibit it.
I wish I had mod points.
Cept each photo would have to be snapped at the exact same spot and/or matched up. Doing that automatically would require a lot of computational horsepower.
In the United States, due to the antiquated eavesdropping/wiretapping laws, you cannot record anybody's conversation without their knowledge and consent.
That is definitely not true. It's a state by state thing.